In a written parliamentary question, Conservative MP Danny Kruger sought clarity from the Ministry of Defence on how changes to the Defence spending uplift might impact the ongoing Challenger 3 programme.

The response from Luke Pollard, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the MoD, understandably offered little specific detail. Pollard’s response highlighted that:

“Funding for specific programmes is considered as part of the Department’s annual budget setting process. The Strategic Defence Review will report in the first half of next year and will set out recommendations on capabilities.”

The broader Strategic Defence Review, due next year, is expected to provide further clarity on the direction of the project. Until then, the future of this modernisation effort remains closely guarded.

In another question posed by James Cartlidge MP, he inquired about the number of submissions received for the Strategic Defence Review. Luke Pollard responded that the review had received input from over 1,700 individuals and organisations, which resulted in more than 8,000 answers across 23 propositions.

“Over 1,700 individuals and organisations responded providing over 8,000 answers across 23 Propositions. Respondents included Serving and retired members of the Armed Forces, the defence industry, the public, academics, Parliamentary colleagues, and our closest allies and partners, including NATO.”

Regarding the new defence review, the Government said previously:

“The Strategic Defence Review was launched by Prime Minister Keir Starmer to make Britain secure at home and strong abroad for decades to come. The review will put personnel at the heart of our future defence, strengthen our homeland security and ensure the UK continues to lead in NATO.

The review will utilise views from experts including military personnel, industry and academics. Defence Secretary John Healey will oversee the review, and the defence review team will be supported by a secretariat from the Ministry of Defence.”

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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45 COMMENTS

    • It was. What I found worrying about it were the questions that were implicitly asking what the role of military capability actually is- or what policy positions it should be expected to support. These are things the Government should already have decided as part of its offer to the electorate.

  2. What are the odds of a reduction to 125 vehicles…..priceless to even consider scrapping this project 148 is hardly enough to cover battlefield attrition rates. The dominoes are beginning to fall in both the Middle East and Ukraine and the UK Government contemplates defence cuts?

    • Why would you think of a reduction to 125 vehs? The signed contract is for 148.
      No-one is thinking of scrapping CR3. The article if anything muses on whether the number might be raised due to a ‘spending uplift’.
      Qty 148 is enough for the two armoured regiments in FS and just barely enough for the Trg Org (RAC & REME), Repair Pool and Attrition Reserve vehicles.

      • No significant increase above 148 CR3s (actually 147 as a pre-production model won’t be refitted to an operational standard, but instead used for destructive testing) is now practical. The British Army currently has 145 CR2s nominally capable of operations at 30 days notice. Eight CR2s have already been converted to the CR3 standard with a similar number in hand, the rest (c.50) are worn-out hulks beyond economic repair or conversion, and heading for the scrap yard. Realistically the 14 operational CR2s given to Ukraine in 2023 were the biggest potential addition to the planned 148 CR3s, one of the reasons why the British Army was so upset to lose them.

        • I have long argued that 148 is not enough to allow sufficient for satisfactory numbers for the Trg Org, Repair Pool and Attrition Reserve. But I don’t hold out hope for even a modest increase.

          The only thing that would force an increase would be if FS was revised to keep the 3rd armoured regiment but that seems unlikely too.

          Where did you hear that the c50 in storage yet on the active list are unsuitable for conversion?

          There should also be a number of tanks on the inactive list which have not yet been scrapped, but their condition is likely to be very poor.

          • >Where did you hear that the c50 in storage yet on the active list are unsuitable for conversion?

            I derived the approximate number by deducting 145 from 213 (Answers provided to Defence Questions in the House of Commons – see Hansard), then further deducted the CR3 conversions known to be completed or estimated on other boards to be in progress. I then assumed that remaining c.50 will undoubtedly be the ones in the worst condition (2-3 a year are judged to be beyond economic repair), and also stripped of potential spare parts except for a few being used for training purposes. All such numbers are a point in time and rarely reconcile exactly, but my point is that there isn’t a pile of additional CR2s that can be upgraded to CR3s.

            IMHO, trying to upgrade 22-30 year old tanks to make them state of the art is not a great idea – we should have gone for new build. But I suppose the MOD didn’t (doesn’t) have the money for a CR3 production line, whilst buying Leopard 2’s was (and is) politically unacceptable.

          • I wouldn’t say that 50 are unsuitable for conversion just because that’s the delta between what’s being upgraded and what’s currently in service. There are 70 in Ashchurch that are definitely in really bad condition, but the 50 in service are still currently part of the equipment pool in use.

          • In 2002/3 I was the Equipment Support Manager (ESM) for everything tank-based that was not CR2 ie CHAVLB, CHAVRE, CRARRV, Cent BARV….and I was also disposing of the CR1s. One of my key tasks was obsolescence management, and the biggest challenge was keeping the Cent BARVs going – all built in the 1940s and converted from gun tanks to BARV in 1961. Cannibalisation was the last resort as there were other ways of dealing with the problem of spares that were no longer made. I had no inactive list vehicles to cannibalise from – all my vehicles were active list.

            The CR2 ESM today has the luxury of being able to cannibalise tanks from the inactive fleet – as said, I had no inactive fleet vehicles. It would be shocking to me if today parts had to also be taken from the active fleet (which all have a role) as there was once a very large number of inactive list tanks (159 from 2010).

            Those 213 CR2s are on the active list and all have a clearly stated role – they are either in the Field Force, Trg Org (RAC and REME), Repair Pool or Attrition Reserve – all are required and really none should be stripped for spares. If spares are required and all other obsolescence management options have failed then spares should have been taken from the inactive tanks. However I am not naiive – I am sure that some of the active list tanks might have been raided for spares even though there was once 159 inactive tanks that could have been used for that

            You say that Hansard says that 145 tanks are available (or can be made available within 30 days (a new and very bad metric). In my day we aimed to have 70% of the fleet available at all times, that number rising to 90% aftter 24-48 hrs intense repair work.

            The tanks on the active list that are unavailable for task are not necessarily wrecks, indeed they really should not be, as they are all required and all have a role.

            AFVs should be upgraded frequently and regularly – back in the day major upgrades were often done in line with a Base Overhaul maybe every 7 years or so. It is baffling and inexcusable that major upgrades on AFVs have barely happened since the early 80s. I am not so critical of upgrading CR2, albeit that it is very late in the day – we start from a position of having fielded one of the best tanks in the world from the late 90s. CR3 will be a very good tank but with some flaws. It is certainly cheaper than buying new. The US and Germany continually upgrade tanks that were first fielded decades ago – not that sure what your concern is?

          • Graham, Thanks for a very interesting and informative post. Great to get a bit of a peak of the reality behind the PR and official statements.

      • Read the article above and refer to a recent comment on the Armed Forces blog. I doubt a rethink will happen regarding CH3 due to the small planned fleet. All I suggested may be an illogical decision to reduce the final numbers. Remember, the Treasury is making these decisions in a fog of fiscal panic.

        • OK. We are contracted for 148 and will pay the £800m. I doubt RBSL would reduce the contract value if we reduced to 125 tanks, and give MoD a refund. It wouldn’t be much anyway.

    • Do we have enough to defend the U.K. the answer is yes but the question should be do we want to have the battle on our own soil.
      148 is barely enough to meet our NATO commitments.
      A strong defence is always far cheaper than a war.

      • We don’t use tanks to defend the UK homeland. They were invented for expeditionary operations and still have that use.

        I agree that 148 is an inadequate number. The army should be structured to have three armoured regiments for our warfighting division plus sufficient for Trg Org, RP, and Attrition Reserve.
        Qty 227 should do it!

      • We should never plan to do battle on our own soil. British Warfare is collaborative and expeditionary by requirement and design. For us to be fighting on our own soil would mean a total failure of our strategic and operational doctrine on every level.

      • Michael, the UK historically fights its wars on foreign soil and needs to have a strong MBT fleet to fulfil its signed obligations.

    • I considered it the other way…actually will there be more.I think people are simply assuming this will be a defence cutting exercise without any evidence to back that up. The government has made it clear it will be increasing defence spending up to 2.5% over a longer term.

      In no way has this review been set in the context of defence cuts or a reducing risk. It’s been set in the context of increased risk and increased spending.

      • It’s a reasonable assumption seeing as the only thing the Treasury talks about is the “black hole” and every Defense review in the past with the exception of after the Falklands has resulted in a cut in equipment, manpower and relative spending.

        • Yes but you have to remember the context of the black hole…that is in year spending. Not recurring spending. There is a big difference between that and 2010 when austerity was focused on cutting recurring spending to the bone. There is no discus of reducing the MODs budget, just increasing it.

      • As I have mentioned in my other responses, ‘The fog of fiscal panic’ is ruling this defence review and it will likely lead to years of further reorganisation and achieving very little in any tangible sense. I can imagine the MOD is banging its head against the wall at what is being proposed.

  3. Given the large increase in skills in this area that the UK has basically just developed, in terms of the engineering and design areas, the new sensor packages and such, surely it makes a huge amount of sense to just jump right into gearing up for a CH4 programme; hybrid powertrain (BAE do these), that new american electrochemical-thermal 120mm gun, a native trophy system, some type of drone kill/ maybe a quad LLM launcher.

    Obviously we would have to restart hull production in earnest, but realistically no reason this could not be done by Bofors for example if we could get other partners on board.

    Tanks are not going away

    • Are you really suggesting stopping the CR3 line?
      As the RAF and the RN do, the army should crack on with the future project whilst building its predecessor. Continue building CR3 whilst setting up a CR4 project team and have them doing some Concept work at least.

      • No not at all! But CR3 is well into the manufacture stage now and they’re only converting 148 existing hulls.

        I’m saying the engineering teams who did the work on CR3 should take all the things they had to compromise on due to being constrained by the existing hull and everything we’ve learned from Ukraine and get going on CR4.

        It doesn’t need to be a blank canvas, it can be an iteration, you can upgrade the hull whilst reusing the GVA and applying technologies from Ajax.

        But this requires the MoD to be competent…. spaceX have managed to build and catch starship quicker than Ajax. Crowsnest, Watchkeeper, Ajax, nimrod, all effectively failures by one metric on another. Ajax might be a good platform now but the in service date and quantity is abysmal for the amount of time and effort that’s been spent.

        • Yep, all sounds good. I fully agree that the CR4 project should be launched now.
          SpaceX is a contractor not the customer for their products. So the analogy should be AFV manufacturers ie GDUK etc are the ones that need to be competent. MoD needs to be too, of course.

          • Small point that isn’t really that revelant but thought I would point out anyway. SpaceX is actually the biggest customer for their own launch vehicles. Out of the 98 Falcon 9 launches so far this year, around 67 have been Starlink launches.

  4. Question for you all to debate:
    How can Bulgaria afford F35 jets and other countries like Poland get more military hardware for their buck whilst appearing to be far more forward thinking in their procurement?
    The UK has quite a large amount of money invested in defence with a population that is going skyward and a tax intake that will only ever go one way, and yet all we read about is an army diminishing in size with capability gaps in most areas of defence?

    • Bulgaria does not have the global deployment expenses that we have. More of their budget can go on home and regional defence. They will probably buy more MOTS equipment from the international market than we do, which will be cheaper than homegrown bespoke kit.

      • Also: No Nuclear Deterrent. No Navy (litterally have 3 1970’s era Frigates displacing 2,000t armed with 8 Sea Sparrow and 4 Exocet, and people talk about T-31 being lightly armed). And the Bulgarian Army consists of literally 2 Brigades.

        Romania is slightly better off, operating a couple of Type 22s (London and Coventry), and fielding two small divisions, and yes F-35. Buuuut… 48 F-35 is essentially their entire airforce, they have 1 Submarine, 3 Frigates and a handful of corvettes, and while yes they have two divisions in theory, they’re very light on the back end and a lot of their equipment is very dated (the TR-85M1 is basically a heavily upgraded T-55 for instance).

    • As far as I am aware, neither Bulgaria or Poland have 2 aircraft carriers or several nuclear subs… Nor do they have the very sophisticated (and expensive) information gathering systems the UK has.We often design our own kit which is then built in small numbers, they buy already developed and often cheaper second hand kit.

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